Zuckerberg's second day in front of politicians followed the same lines as his previous questioning, with him apologizing and saying that he "started this company and [is] responsible for what happens."
Speaking with Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear, award-winning editorial cartoonist Ted Rall stated that regardless of how tough Republicans and Democrats might've been on the CEO, nothing major is going to come out of the hearing.
"There will be some sort of regulation of Facebook… but it's absolutely not going to matter," Rall told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "Facebook is not ‘too big to fail,' but it's too powerful to regulate."
"Their influence in Washington is just too pervasive and too pernicious… I think we're not going to see anything with any teeth come out of this," he added.
According to The Verge, Facebook has contributed a total of $641,685 to the election campaigns of members of Congress that questioned Zuckerberg on Tuesday and Wednesday. Top recipients included Sen. Cory Booker with $44,025; Sen. Kamala Harris with $30,990 and Rep. Anna Eshoo with $39,800 in donations.
Even though it was revealed that Facebook also collected personal data indicating, for example, which users were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, erectile dysfunction and binge-eating disorders, Rall urged the revelation isn't going to lead to any useful legislation that would protect such private information.
"Don't expect anything meaningful to change," he told listeners.
"The privacy barn door has been left open, the horses are gone, the horses don't have a tracking device in them, they're never coming back and we're not getting [our privacy] back," Rall told Becker. "It's over… it's too late… there's nothing we can do about it now."
Rall later noted that "under the existing system, under the gangster capitalism… it's impossible to put this stuff back because there's just too much money behind the people that are monetizing our privacy."
